Smile Rose Tyler, The Future Can't Be That Bad
by Flaignhan
Summary: [Post Doomsday spoilers] Every decision we make creates a parallel universe, where there's another version of you, another version of me, another version of the person you never thought you'd see again...


A/N: To be honest, I'm not overly happy with this. I've written better but I liked the idea and decided it needed to be written. Reviews would be appreciated if you'd be so kind.

Disclaimer: Don't own it. Shame really, but the truth hurts.

-x-

"Have a safe journey home Miss Tyler," the receptionist said kindly as Rose headed for the door.

"You too Anita, good night," Rose pushed open the heavy door of Torchwood Tower and stepped out onto the street, trying to find a gap in the masses of people making their way home to their families that she could squeeze into.

She pulled her jacket around her tightly, the wind was exceptionally cold for the time of year, and she sighed in relief as she entered the nearest tube station, where the wind couldn't reach her.

She clucked her tongue against the roof of her mouth as she held onto the handle on the train, glancing at the advertisements stuck to the walls and rolling her eyes at the stupidity of some of them. She smiled when she saw an advert for her Dad's Vitex drink, and felt some of her stress which accompanied the daily commute to and from work subside a little as she was reminded of his smiling face.

Life had been interesting, sort of, since she last saw the Doctor. It had been a while before she'd actually managed to do anything but think about the Doctor, but she'd managed to pick herself back up and start over. She had a great job, studying different alien artefacts that 'fell' to Earth. She didn't agree with the shooting down of alien craft, something which was most definitely influenced by the Doctor, but even so, she wasn't so powerful that she could put a stop to it. She still lived with her parents and Mickey, there was no point moving out of that big house, not that she'd wanted to. These days she very much felt that she needed to be close to her family, and especially with the birth of her little brother, Nick, she wanted to help out more than she had done in her previous universe.

The cup of tea that was always waiting for her in the lounge when she got in from work felt more satisfying than ever as she felt the warmth of the liquid spread throughout her body. She flicked on the TV and settled down for a night of poor television programmes, shuddering as she saw the all too familiar set of the Weakest Link on one of the channels that she was flicking through. "What's so bad about it Rose?" Jackie asked for what felt like the thousandth time.

"Nothing…just that Anne Robinson, gives me the creeps." Jackie pursed her lips and bustled out of the room, apparently to sort Nick out with some dinner.

Rose's evening was well and truly disrupted as she flicked onto the news, her half filled cup of tea smashing on the floor, the lukewarm liquid splashing over her feet.

"The whole of Central London has been closed off as police investigate the fire. Earlier reports in the…" Rose stared as she saw the burning building of Henriks, the department store that she used to work in back in her London.

"It's him…" she whispered, before rushing upstairs to change her clothes. She couldn't possibly expect to save him from Autons and the Nestene Consciousness in a trouser suit could she?

"... fire then spread throughout the store... there is very little chance of saving the infrastructure..."

"Mum," Rose said as she walked into the kitchen, her jeans and warm jumper making her feel more like her old self. She sat down at the table in the kitchen and began tying up the laces on her trainers, trying to suppress a smile. "Do not go out of the house tonight alright?"

"Why?" Jackie asked, confusedly. "Are you planning something?"

"It's happening all over again," she said, her voice cracking slightly as the full weight of what might happen hit her. She could see him again. What were the chances of that shop being blown up in an alternate universe but it being for a different reason? Slim, she hoped. She kissed her mum on the cheek before jogging towards the door and pulling it shut behind her.

The London Eye looked the same as ever as she came to a halt, leaning against the wall trying to catch her breath. She hadn't bothered getting a bus; she just jogged the whole way, not wanting to be delayed by some lazy bus driver who couldn't be bothered to keep to the timetable. Rose felt her heart sink into the ground as she realised the TARDIS was nowhere to be seen, no familiar wailing sound, no Doctor. She cursed herself for building her hopes up like this. It probably was just an explosion. It wasn't even the right year for it to be happening; this Universe was three years ahead of her one anyway.

Her heart leapt when she realised that she had the wrong day. That they'd defeated the Nestene Consciousness the day _after_ he'd blown up the shop. She grinned madly and strolled over to the bus stop, smiling slightly at her stupidity before boarding the number seventy six, and waiting to be taken back home.

Maybe, if she retraced her steps exactly, and did everything she'd done before, she'd manage to catch the Doctor at some point, even if it meant going with Mickey to see that man who'd built up a collection of photographs and articles about the Doctor, going to the restaurant with the plastic Mickey, and running out into the TARDIS with the Doctor.

Or she could just meet him at the man hole.

Rose hardly slept that night. She kept thinking about seeing the Doctor again, what she'd do if he didn't show, whether she'd just battle the Nestene Consciousness on her own, or just walk away, because without the anti plastic, she didn't know how to defeat the creature. Eventually, when the luminous red numbers on her alarm clock became hard to see and her head felt like it weighed a tonne, she drifted off into a dream-filled sleep, memories flooding her mind of her first few trips with the Doctor. Her Doctor.

When she woke up, she realised that if this Doctor was a parallel Doctor, he wouldn't even recognise her. She'd be a stranger to him, all over again.

Time passed incredibly slowly. The journey to work seemed to take twice as long, and the hours went by so slowly that they seemed to find snail's pace exhausting. Her day brightened slightly when she was presented with a large silver gun. "Yvonne wants to know what you make of this," Stephen said to her. It seemed incredibly familiar…

Rose aimed the gun at the wall and pulled the trigger, her memory coming back full force as a large square hole appeared at the spot where she'd aimed it. Stephen gasped, not expecting her to start 'blasting the building apart' as he would dramatically tell his colleagues later. Rose flicked one of the switches and the wall flew back into place. "Digital rewind," Rose explained. "Where did you get this? We're not supposed to have technology like this for three thousand years…it's from the Weapons Factories at Villengard, fifty-first century." She frowned at the young man who was standing next to her, waiting to report back to Yvonne with what he'd just seen.

"You'd have to ask Yvonne, I haven't got a clue."

Rose sighed as he took the gun and left the room, her office becoming silent once more. She opened a window of solitaire on her computer and started playing, game after game after game. When the clock informed her that it was five o'clock, she hurriedly picked up her bag, pulled on her coat and left her office, pressing the button of the lift impatiently, pacing back and forth as she waited for the irritating _ding_ that announced its arrival.

She didn't bother with her cup of tea when she got in. Instead she rushed upstairs and changed into a pair of jeans and a hooded sweatshirt, trying to make it as close to the real thing as possible. She jogged down the stairs, sometimes skipping over one, and poked her head round the kitchen door. "Mum, I got the date wrong, it's tonight, don't leave the house tonight."

"Rose what's going on?" Jackie called after her daughter, but she was only answered by the slam of the front door.

Rose waited impatiently on the wall she'd stopped at last night. She glanced over at the manhole, which had a slight reddish glow around the edges. She smiled hopefully, before checking her watch, and realising it had only been thirty seconds since she'd last done the same thing. She looked up as she heard a familiar wailing noise, her heart rate speeding up, and her hands shaking ever so slightly. She held her breath as a Police Box materialised in front of her, and a man in a leather jacket and dark trousers stepped out, frowning slightly and looking around.

"Looking for something?" Rose asked coyly, her smile becoming as wide as it had been when she'd travelled with him first time round. The Doctor looked up and frowned at her, not sure why she had even spoken to him. "There's a really weird glow around that manhole cover," she said, pointing the direction. "D'you know what it is? Bit creepy…" The Doctor didn't answer, just grinned and headed down towards it, Rose jumping up from her seat on the wall and following him as he jogged down the steps. "I'm Rose," she told him, wanting to make sure she made her mark as quickly as possible. "Who are you?" she tried to hide a smile as she asked this question, for it was the question that followed them everywhere, and every time, the Doctor managed to come up with a new and inventive answer which successfully dodged around giving away any true information.

"I'm the Doctor, any particular reason you're following me?"

"I wanna know what's down there…" Rose replied, craning her neck as he shifted the manhole cover of and the small area they were standing in was flooded with red light.

"This is gonna be dangerous, I suggest you go home and eat your chips and forget about this."

"No, don't try and decide what's best for me," Rose said, a little sharply. He'd done too much of that back in the old universe. She wasn't about to fall in the same trap twice.

"On your own head…" he sighed, before climbing down the ladder, Rose following him. "That," he said, pointing to the huge mass in a pit in the middle of the room, "is the Nestene Consciousness."

"Living plastic…" Rose whispered.

"How d'you know?" Rose mentally slapped herself. If she gave anything away…well, she might as well tell him a little bit now, then she could at least impress him with her knowledge of aliens and the universe. The little boastful part of her glowed inside, and a wide smile formed on her face.

"I went travelling once, saw all sorts of things, you wouldn't believe. Now, if you haven't got any anti-plastic then we're in a bit of a sticky situation." The Doctor gaped at her, not believing what he was hearing.

"How did you know?" he asked slowly, pulling the vial of anti-plastic out of his jacket pocket.

"Well if you use anything other than anti-plastic you're a bit of an amateur really aren't you?" she was enjoying this, better take him down a peg or two at the beginning rather than suffering his insults for the next two years and more, because she was planning to stay for so much longer this time around, oh so much longer.

"Right," the Doctor said, his mind coming back to the task at hand. "Stay here," Rose nodded and waited while he went down to talk to the Nestene Consciousness.

As she suspected, the Doctor was soon accosted by the Autons that had been standing guard of the Consciousness. She had been waiting by the chain that she remembered swinging from as though it were yesterday, and began hacking away at it, ignoring the calls of the Doctor for her to run.

-x-

"Following the fire yesterday, the department store, Henriks, shall be closed until further notice. Fire inspectors are still unsure of what caused the explosion, and have found no traces of explosive materials."

"Oh my God…" it was then that Jackie Tyler had dropped her cup of tea in the same place Rose had the previous evening.

-x-

Rose wrapped her hands tightly around the chain, praying to have the same luck the she'd had the last time she'd done this. She jumped off of the platform, swinging through the air, managing to kick one of the dummies into the pit below where the Nestene Consciousness lay, while the Doctor wrestled with one and successfully threw it into the Consciousness. Rose ran towards the TARDIS, which had been brought into the underground lair and without thinking, opened it with the key she'd kept round her neck since she'd been given it.

The Doctor looked at her darkly when he stepped inside the TARDIS, and set the coordinates for somewhere safer. "Where did you get that?" Rose didn't need to ask what he was talking about. She'd ruined everything, he wasn't going to want her now, he'd think she was some sort of plant, trying to steal whatever information she could, or even a thief. Her only chance was to tell him everything.

"There are parallel universes yeah?" she said her voice breaking slightly. She still hadn't mastered the act of not crying when she talked about what had happened in the past. "Where everything's the same but a little bit different. Where there's another version of my mum, and my dad, where there's another version of you." The Doctor shook his head disbelievingly.

"You can't hop between parallel universes, you can't!" she laughed slightly, he'd said that before, a long time ago. "What?"

"I know, that's what you said before you opened up the void, and I got pulled in, but my Dad from this world, he came through and caught me, took me back. No way out, you'd sealed it."

"So you're saying that in a parallel universe you travelled with me and you ended up getting sucked in here?"

"When I saw that you'd blown up my old job, I knew I had to find you, and I know this is really weird for you 'cause I already know you and…" she sighed, not knowing what else to say. "I just needed to see you. Just once," she finished, her voice quiet. She didn't dare meet his eye. She didn't want to see him looking at her in disgust. She couldn't bear to see him hate her. She should have just stayed at home and stayed with her sometimes interesting job at Torchwood and carried on with her life.

"So erm, where do I take you first then?" Rose looked up and saw he was grinning. She sighed in relief and he stepped forward, wiping away a few tears that had escaped with the (rather cut down) telling of her story. Or was it their story? He pulled her into one of those bone crushing hugs that made everything better, and just for a second, she believed that she was nineteen again, and that the idea of travelling in time and space was brand new and hardly fathomable. "Smile Rose Tyler, the future can't be that bad." Rose grinned at him and he moved over to the console, awaiting orders.

"Platform one, year five billion," she told him.

"Ah, the end of the world."


End file.
